Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Ice cream for breakfast…

We had some great moments
and several years of painful drama, but I take comfort that we were on solid
ground when he took his final walk down Michigan Ave in Chicago and died of a
heart attack.

It took several years for me to realize that the pain of his
loss will be a constant companion.

It took even longer for me to welcome those unexpected
tugs…from driving by a hardware store and remembering how fun it was to help
out with small repairs to walking down grocery store aisles and recalling my
father’s intense focus on food brought on by a childhood spent in hunger.

I miss my father every single day.

And every now…without setting a schedule or planning it all out…I
pause in remembrance and do something that I know would make my father smile.

I eat a giant bowl of ice cream for breakfast.

Yep, ice cream.

Because my father once lied to some mean-girls at my grade
school and told them that everyone who comes over to our house for a sleep-over
gets ice cream for breakfast. I
can still see the look of awe on their faces…can still feel the giggle working
through my body…I still feel adoration for my father for knowing exactly what
to say to those girls I so desperately wanted to impress.

Later, my father told me that only silly people follow silly
rules and deny themselves ice cream when they want it.

If he were still with us, he would sit down next to me and
dig into that ice cream with gusto.

I always add an extra scoop just for him.

Far too many people know
the constant companionship of loss.

I know that they probably feel those unexpected tugs too.

And I hope that they also pause and do
something special to remember…

…even if it is something as ridiculously perfect as inhaling
a huge bowl of ice cream at 7 o’clock in the morning.

My theory is strawberry ice cream counts as a serving of fruit. The whipped cream is dairy, the sprinkled nuts are good for you, and the hot fudge? Well, one has to have a little something for a treat, right?

I peruse the pro abortion blogosphere frequently. One of my stops is your blog. I drop by and comment and you don’t post my comments. No big woop.

Today I read your post and I cried.And for about ten minutes, on one day, I didn’t look at your pro abortion opinions, your liberal progressive ideology, or your skin color (not that I did that anyway – but only in the sense that YOU identify as an angry BLACK bitch). You see, I just lost my dad three weeks ago – and it occurs to me that every little girl has/had a daddy. And many little girls are fortunate to have/have had daddies that are/were their heroes. Like me. Like you. And sadly, many of us have lost our heroes. Just this weekend I visited the town I grew up in, and walked the aisles of the grocery store where I held his big hand and got to pick out whatever ice cream I wanted………

So Pam……I don’t care who you are, or what you look like, or what your political ideology is today. I’m just sorry for your loss, as I am painfully close to mine. Thank you for taking a break in the political/feminist discourse and sharing such a touching story about your dad. I prayed for you today – and along with the same prayers I always pray, i.e., that evil will be thwarted and that the truth will become the light, I prayed that God would ease some of the pain of loss you feel for your beloved daddy. I also prayed for my own hateful heart and thanked God that it can still be broken.

A piece of pie covered with ice cream was my dad's breakfast of choice. He too spent his childhood in extreme poverty, and his giddy enjoyment of food was contagious. He thanked my mother for every meal, and he usually said, "Honey, I think this is the best you ever made it!" Oh, I miss my sweet dad so much, every day. Your post made me cry.

So sweet it's heartwrenching. wonderful. I too lost my Dad - just last year and I loved the heads up that his loss will be a constant companion so I can stop waiting for the hurt to go away and get on with it. It's not morning but in remembrance of him, I gotta go get some ice cream. Thanks ABB!